by Reid Fitzsimons
Bill De Blasio, the 56 year-old mayor of New York City, is a moron, and that’s okay. Many of his supporters are wealthy elite Manhattanites and they too are morons, and that’s okay: what is democracy about if not absurdly wealthy and culturally isolated people voting for their philosophical kin? Bill De Blasio, to those uninformed, is a progressive, perhaps prototypically so. He’s a white guy from a privileged background, Ivy League educated, and rich (net worth around 1.5 million-admittedly not a huge amount in his circle- obtained mostly through “public service”). He’s an environmental crusader/climate change warrior who was discovered last month to routinely take a motorcade to a gym 12 miles from the mayoral mansion. He justified this in part by declaring that some of the SUV(s) involved were hybrids- a Chevy Tahoe hybrid SUV gets 20 mpg in the city- and otherwise by stating the actions of one person are environmentally insignificant. One might reasonably think an exercise bike could be made available at the mansion.
More recently he decided it appropriate to fly to Germany to participate in the anti-G20/anti-capitalist protests/riots. Apparently he was invited to speak by a group called “Hamburg (Germany) Shows Attitude,” which covered the cost of his adventure. It’s always enjoyable to see a rich, privileged, white male celebrity stand up to The Man. One might reasonably think that his jet emitted more than a few molecules of carbon dioxide.
De Blasio, who twice during his adult life had his name legally changed (his original name was Warren Wilhelm Jr.), could well play in a Seinfeld-esque sitcom. How easy it is to envision him sitting in some mid-town ethnic restaurant thinking to himself, “I am a good person, I fight for the environment, I feel for the poor, I’m for affordable housing, I march for social justice, I love transsexuals, etc.”